Ferihegy International Airport gets TDA award for feasability study on regional hub development

Published: 7/28/1999

Hungary's major civil airport, Ferihegy International Airport in Budapest,has taken another step closer to emerging as Hungary"s major regional airline hub. The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Water Management has received a $250,000 US Trade and Development Agency (TDA) grant for a feasibility study on the development of Ferihegy International Airport as a regional hub and commercial centre. An unnamed US firm will conduct the study, but about 20% of the funding will go towards hiring Hungarian subcontractors. The project will be completed by September 2000 according to the TDA. For the Hungarian Government establishing Ferihegy as a hub airport is seen as improving Hungary"s position as " part of the Euro-Atlantic integration process" said Sándor Gyurkovics, the ministry's administrative secretary of state. US Ambassador to Hungary Peter Tufo, who signed the study documents, said the aim of the study was "to integrate all of the work that has already been done to create the infrastructure which would permit Ferihegy to become a regional hub". Noting that the grant was "part of a long-standing objective to help Budapest realize its potential as a financial, communications and transportation centre," Tufo pointed out that "although Budapest enjoys a strategic advantage because of its location, it must offer increasingly more services in a service-oriented world". Backers of the hub concept see it as enhancing the distribution of cargo throughout the country and the region, promoting the expansion of retail sales activity at the airport and attracting development of hotels and office space at and around Ferihegy. Among other things, "the airport has the potential of becoming a passenger and cargo feeder facility serving regional airports at Debrecen (www.concise.org 7th May 1999), the dual-use (military and civil) airport at Taszár and other airports throughout the country," Tufo said. Another important benefit of creating a hub facility here, he added," is that it would enable Hungary to play a major role in the reconstruction that's sure to come in the Balkans". According to Gábor Somogyi-Tóth, Deputy Director of the Air Traffic and Airport Administration (LFI), 3.9 million travellers and 32,000 tons of cargo passed through Ferihegy last year, up from 3.6 million passengers and 27,000 tons of freight in 1997. "We expect to exceed 4 million passengers and 35,000 tons of freight during 1999," he said.

Article ID: 707